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Citi: Delivery & Release Stabilization, Agile Transformation (Implementing SAFe)
Company
- Citi
Location
- Cracow Poland | Manama Bahrain | New York NY USA
Timeline
- January 2025 - November 2025
Budget
- $12M>
Tools & Technologies
- JIRA (Roadmap configuration, release boards, rich filter dashboards, custom workflows, automation), JIRA Release Hub, Miro, MS Project, Confluence, Notion, Smartsheet, AgilityHealth Radar, ServiceNow, Jira Service Management, Jenkins, Git, Bitbucket, Bitbucket Pipelines, Zendesk, Zephyr, Grafana, SonarQube, Copilot, JIRA Intelligence, AI-powered reporting tools.
Skills
- Project Planning, Quality Management, Team Leadership, Cross-team Collaboration, Orchestration, Facilitation, Leadership, Project Management, Coaching, Release Management, Scope Management, Quality Assurance, Project Initiation, Risk Management, Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD), PI Planning, Value Stream Mapping, Change Management, Enterprise Agility, Kanban, System Thinking, Lean-Agile, Scrum, Stakeholder Management, SDLC Governance, Risk Management, Risk Mitigation, Definition of Done, IT & Business Strategy Alignment.
Impact
- • Entered Foreign Exchange Risk Technology Group: 15 teams, 100+ team members as Program Manager & Release Train Engineer Risk Management Citi application after 3 predecessors quit within first 4 months. The strengths as a Program Leader showed in chaos stabilization, delivery under pressure, being able to rebuild structures, complex coordination.
• Within first week developed the Program Roadmap to reflect business objectives from program director. Withing the first month planned, facilitated and hosted a yearly FX Risk on-site event for 100+ participants. Stabilized the main release train (ART) within first 3 releases and directly impacted the delivery efficiency within the teams.
• Implemented JIRA workflow automations to track and manage dependencies, and switched from manual (email, ad hoc communication) to systematic dependency tracking creating and using information radiators and regular automated reporting.
• Took over the entire Program processes architecture in 5 main domains: Architecture, Automation, Testing, Workflow, Releases.
• Organized working groups and dedicated process enablers in teams. Arranged systematic communication and ongoing processes review and proposals from the working groups. Implemented yearly PI Planning procedure as part of the ART which helped structure the releases in a timely manner without delay.
• The teams struggled with chaotic backlog prioritization and no focal point to manage the backlog that matched business objectives, which caused delays in delivery and inefficiency. Outlined business benefits and financial impact of adopting SAFe and provided input on SAFe practices by building framework reference by creating a scalable SAFe knowledge hub in Confluence, defining artifact structures (Themes, Initiatives, Epics), linking logic, and usage standards to support consistent team adoption and PI planning workflows.
• Established a repeatable system by initially leading the release cycle preparation end-to-end — including backlog structuring, tagging items for BA/PM and design review, aligning dependencies. Transitioned ownership to teams by enabling tech team leads to self-manage preparation, leading to autonomous, cross-team readiness with minimal oversight. Improved cross-team collaboration and communicated.
• Implemented the Definition of Done (DoD) to manage SDLC and cover all the release processes necessary for delivery. Coached the teams to treat it as reference point when managing releases and define the main features as ready only if they meet the DoD standard.
Led the transformation of a 15-team Foreign Exchange Risk Program (100+ team members) as Program Manager & Release Train Engineer for Citi’s Risk Management application. Delivered rapid stabilization of the main release train, improved processes scope for the full SDLC, drove adoption of SAFe practices. Developed a full Program Roadmap in week 1 and hosted a 100+ person on-site event in month 1 on the project. Eliminated manual dependency chaos via JIRA automation, dashboards, and systematic reporting. Introduced and systemized PI Planning, backlog discipline, and team-owned release preparation. Institutionalized Definition of Done (DoD) to drive delivery quality, reduce risks, and help teams follow the timelines and goals set by business. Enabled transition from reactive execution to self-managed, release-aligned delivery across the ART.